A Day Like Today
by Ed Bravo
Summary: A brief action-adventure sequence starring Lara Croft. This story was inspired by the pre-credits adventures typically found in James Bond films. I wrote this story almost four years ago, and it was first published at The Tomb Raider Archive.


A DAY LIKE TODAY  
  
A Lara Croft mini-adventure by Ed Bravo  
  
(C) 1998 Ed Bravo  
  
LARA CROFT is a registered trademark of EIDOS Entertainment  
  
  
  
For the first time in centuries, the lost city was invaded.  
  
As three helicopter gunships swept overhead, soldiers charged into the ancient ruins. And on the small hills that rose to one side of the city, a line of tanks rumbled to a halt and pointed  
  
their cannon at the large temple that dominated the centre of the ruins.  
  
Most of the soldiers took up positions around the temple while one group rushed up the large flight of steps at the front of the building. A few metres from the top of the steps, they stopped and crouched and raised their assault rifles at the dark entrance into the temple.  
  
A moment later, side by side, the helicopter gunships hovered some distance behind the soldiers at the top of the temple, and rocket pods and door- mounted machine guns were also brought to bear upon the entrance.  
  
Back on one of the hills with the tanks, the officer commanding the operation grinned and raised a loudspeaker to his lips.  
  
"LARA CROFT!" his voice boomed at the temple. "YOU ARE COMPLETELY SURROUNDED BY CRACK TROOPS! IF YOU DO NOT SURRENDER YOURSELF AND HAND OVER WHAT YOU ARE PLANNING TO...STEAL FROM MY ANCESTORS, YOU WILL BE DESTROYED!"  
  
The officer waited for a response.  
  
A moment passed.  
  
Silence came from the temple's entrance.  
  
The officer raised his loudspeaker again.  
  
"THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING, LARA CROFT!" his voice boomed again. "YOU WILL HAVE TEN SECONDS TO COMPLY, AND I START COUNTING NOW - TEN!"  
  
The soldiers crouching near the temple's entrance grinned.  
  
"NINE!"  
  
Suddenly, an odd sound came from deep within the ancient building.  
  
"EIGHT!"  
  
The soldiers looked at each other, and frowned.  
  
"SEVEN!"  
  
The sound grew louder, and was coming at great speed towards the entrance.  
  
"SIX!"  
  
A few of the soldiers stood up and approached the dark doorway and raised their assault rifles.  
  
"FIVE!"  
  
They looked inside, and they gasped as a bright white light came rushing towards them..  
  
"FOUR!"  
  
The soldiers screamed and dived away from the entrance.  
  
"THREE...WHAT THE?!?"  
  
And as Lara Croft burst out of the temple upon a trailbike and leaped high into the air above the steps, the officer dropped his jaw and his loudspeaker.  
  
The young Englishwoman, bent low over her handlebars, flew between two of the helicopters upon her motorbike - and the pilots and door-gunners of those aircraft gaped in amazement as their target shot past.  
  
And as she began to come back down towards Earth, towards the tanks on the hills, the officer regained his composure and snarled at the oncoming Lara Croft.  
  
"FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!"  
  
The tanks opened fire. The troops down in the ruins who'd turned after their target opened fire. The helicopter gunships, which had turned around as well, opened fire.  
  
Cannon shells whooshed past Lara Croft and exploded within the lost city. Soldiers screamed as they were hurled into the air in all directions.  
  
Those troops who weren't hit by the tanks blasted their weapons after the young Englishwoman on the motorbike, and the officer and other troops up on the hills threw themselves down as a deadly barrage came their way. Some were too slow, and were instead blown off their feet.  
  
And missiles from the helicopter gunships reached the tanks before Lara Croft did. Towering fireballs erupted from the hilltops, and a few flaming turrets were sent flying.  
  
The young Englishwoman raced up the hill the colonel had been standing on, and again she leaped into the air upon her trailbike and flew past the blazing line of tanks. A moment later she landed on the other side of the hills, and as a soldier there swung his assault rifle at her she stuck out a leg and kicked him hard in the guts.  
  
Back where he was still flat on his stomach, the officer screamed with rage as he watched Lara Croft speed away - and quickly he rose to his feet and gestured angrily to the helicopter gunships.  
  
"AFTER HER!" he screamed. "DESTROY HER!"  
  
Although they couldn't hear what he was screaming at them, the pilots understood what their commander meant from his furious gesturing - and so they shoved their control sticks forward, and the three aircraft headed after the young Englishwoman on the motorcycle.  
  
As the three aircraft passed overhead the officer turned around and shook his fist after his fleeing quarry.  
  
"YOU WILL NOT LEAVE THIS COUNTRY ALIVE, LARA CROFT!" he screamed. "YOU WILL PERISH BEFORE - "  
  
The fuel tank of a burning vehicle exploded nearby.  
  
" - AAAAARGH!"  
  
***  
  
Lara Croft looked back over her shoulder at the pursuing gunships - which were closing fast.  
  
"Bugger!" the young Englishwoman cried, and as she turned back to the way ahead the leading helicopter let fly with a few missiles.  
  
Lara Croft weaved as explosions erupted to her left and right. Dirt struck her in the face, and she grimaced and spat out a mouthful of soil.  
  
"And now I want a bloody glass of water!" she said - and when she raced over a small rise and saw a river ahead, she grinned. "Well, what do you know!"  
  
Another barrage of missiles shrieked past and ploughed into the river, and as she tore alongside it Lara Croft was drenched by water from the blasts.  
  
"Me and my bloody big mouth!" she cried.  
  
Up ahead was a bridge - with a group of soldiers at one end, on the young Englishwoman's side of the river, and a tank and more soldiers on the other.  
  
"Oh, give me a bloody break!" Lara Croft cried as the soldiers spotted her and shouted and raised their assault rifles - and quickly she drew one of the pistols she carried in her thigh-holsters and opened fire.  
  
Just then one of the gunships fired again, and missed again - and the overshooting missiles headed straight for the soldiers, who screamed and threw themselves to the ground.  
  
"Thank heavens these crack troops aren't all they're cracked up to be!" Lara Croft laughed as the rockets exploded at the end of the bridge and hurled most of the troops in the air - and as she saw an assault rifle come flying in her direction, she quickly reholstered her pistol and stuck her hand in the air.  
  
"Gotcha!" the young Englishwoman cried as she grabbed the automatic weapon, and at the bridge she slewed the trailbike around to a halt within all the smoke from the missile blasts.  
  
On the other side of the bridge, most of the troops had run off after seeing what the gunship had done to their comrades - but inside the tank, the gunner remained at his post and squinted through his sights at the smoke across the water.  
  
Not far from the bridge, the three helicopter gunships lined up side by side again and also waited for the first sign of their quarry through the smoke.  
  
A moment passed - and then suddenly something burst out of the smoke onto the bridge.  
  
The tank opened fire. The gunships opened fire.  
  
The bridge exploded in several places - but just before all the blasts, the tank gunner and the gunship pilots saw that their target had been a riderless trailbike.  
  
As the broken and burning bridge collapsed into the river the gunships moved forward, and after they passed the wreckage they separated and descended close to the water. The pilots raised their helmet visors and looked closely at either the river or the banks, while their door-gunners leaned out and did the same.  
  
One of the helicopters drifted over to the riverbank near where Lara Croft had last been seen, and its landing skids brushed through a large cluster of tall reeds. The pilot looked back over his shoulder at his door- gunners.  
  
"See anything?" he asked.  
  
Both gunners shook their heads, and the pilot turned back to his controls and snorted with disgust.  
  
One of the other gunships was at the centre of the river, and its pilot watched the aircraft at the reeds lift upwards.  
  
With Lara Croft hanging by one hand from one of the landing skids.  
  
"This would have to be the most bloody stupid thing I've ever tried!" the young Englishwoman said as she faced the gunship at the centre of the river, and with her other hand she opened fire with the assault rifle that was now slung upon its strap from her shoulder.  
  
The door-gunner standing above Lara Croft gasped as he saw the windscreen shatter on the gunship at the centre of the river, and as that craft then plunged downwards he looked down and saw the young Englishwoman looking up at him.  
  
"Sorry, old bean!" she said as she swung her assault rifle upwards and gave him a quick burst - and as he screamed and fell out of the doorway, his pilot turned back again and screamed as well.  
  
"KILL HER, KILL HER, KILL HER!" he shrieked at the other door-gunner - just as the gunship that had been at the centre of the river slammed into the water with a loud crash.  
  
On the other side of that catastrophe, one of the door-gunners in the third gunship snarled as he lost a clear shot of his target hanging under his comrades' craft, and he yelled to his pilot to move closer.  
  
Meanwhile, Lara Croft had taken hold of the skid with both hands, and quickly she swung back and forth to give herself momentum as she saw the other gunship come sideways towards her -  
  
"One...two...and THREE!"  
  
- and as the two helicopters moved close together the young Englishwoman swung herself upwards and let go of the skid, and tucked herself into a ball and spun through the air towards the other gunship, and came out of her roll and landed in a crouch right next to the door-gunner who had been trying to aim at her, and stood up.  
  
"And good day to you too!" Lara Croft said with a smile to the stunned man standing before her - and then she head-butted him.  
  
And as that gunner collapsed the last one in the other gunship frantically swung his late partner's machine gun towards the young Englishwoman and opened fire.  
  
Lara Croft dropped back into a crouch - and the other gunner in her craft screamed as he was blasted out of his doorway.  
  
"And now it's your turn!" the young Englishwoman cried as, still crouching, she reached up and grabbed the machine gun next to her and fired back at the other gunship.  
  
A moment later, the last of the door-gunners splashed into the river - and his pilot screamed as his cockpit was then blasted with bullets.  
  
Lara Croft stood up as the other gunship suddenly dropped to the river like the first one, and as she turned to the cockpit of her craft the pilot there opened his door and jumped out.  
  
"Bloody wimp!" the young Englishwoman cried as she scrambled for the vacated pilot's seat - and as she frantically took hold of the control stick there came the sound of another watery crash from outside.  
  
Back on land, the gunner in the tank blinked yet again as he watched yet another helicopter fall into the river - as well as the pilot from the last one in the air splash into the water as well.  
  
Then the third gunship turned around to face the tank - and as the gunner realised who was now at the aircraft's controls, he shrieked and scrambled to get out of his vehicle.  
  
"Good boy!" Lara Croft said with a chuckle as she watched the gunner flee, and then she blasted a couple of missiles at the tank.  
  
A moment later, another twisting fireball lifted into the sky near the still-smoking bridge, and the young Englishwoman turned her aircraft away and flew off.  
  
***  
  
Several kilometres later, as the border passed beneath her, Lara Croft finally slumped in her seat and let out a great sigh.  
  
"Oh, Christ - am I bloody glad that's over!" she said, and she reached over to the backpack on the seat next to her. The young Englishwoman stuck her hand inside the bag and rummaged around, and when she found what she was looking for she stuck the end of it in her mouth and tore off some wrapping.  
  
"I could eat a bloody horse!" Lara Croft said a moment later around a mouthful of granola bar, and she reached inside her backpack again and found something else.  
  
This time, it was an ancient golden object that the young Englishwoman had brought with her from the temple, and she raised it before her.  
  
"The stories you could tell, old friend," she said - and then she grinned. "Did you ever have a day like today?" 


End file.
